


pull the trigger for the second time (and make from us the death of love)

by chsxrt



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Baekhyun-centric, Blood and Violence, Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, In The Flesh AU, M/M, Minor Character Death, Post-Zombie Apocalypse, its supposed to be angst, more characters to be add, more tags to be tagged
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2018-08-12 02:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7917052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chsxrt/pseuds/chsxrt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During The Rising, Byun Baekhyun wakes up and does something he's not proud of. When Park Chanyeol knows about it, the trigger is pulled and it's too late for Baekhyun to be sorry.</p><p>((An In The Flesh AU, where Byun Baekhyun is our PDS sufferer and Park Chanyeol a member in the HVF; you don't need to know about In The Flesh (series) to understand, i'll be all explained as chapters go by))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a blink of humanity

**Author's Note:**

> you know, english is not my mother tongue, be merciful and enjoy!

He closed his eyes: taking back every sensation of that moment, more than he wanted to. Until a shiver wandered his nape making his eyelids open when the cold felt warmed up inside his eyes. 

“It’s always the same” he breathed out. He started shaking while remembering _that_ night. He did every time someone asked about it, “The first thing that crosses my mind it’s that little girl. She was pure, she was… innocent. I knew her from long ago, since she was born really.” _I should have known who she was, “_ We lived in a small town. It made everyone closer to you. I never though something-“ he stopped and put himself straight, swallowed and continue, “-like this could happen to her. To anyone really,” once straight, he looked up to the room, eye to eye,” not like we planned it, right?” a rough and force laugh slipped his lips but broke down at the intention.

Everyone tried to smile. They understood what he meant. They _knew_. After all, all of them were the same, they knew it too well; a new type of monster.

 _“I am a partially deceased syndrome sufferer and what I did in my untreated state was not my fault."_

Dr. Kim made him repeated those words each session. He though ‘PDS sufferers’, as he called them, shouldn’t blame themselves for what they did. They didn’t control their brain. Although it was half true, the reality behind was harsher to say, so Baekhyun was only brave enough to think about it. No one talked about their untreated stage, it was some kind of non-spoken rule they all learnt when they first woke up after the treatment. The only time they got to be apologetic about their past was there, on the “PDS Sufferers Anonymous”, as he headed someone called the lesson.

“So-“ swallowing made him able to breath, “I approached to her. She didn’t see me coming. She just- she was _playing_. Se used to play outside every evening. I had seen her lots of times before. His hair had some blonde shades that played around with the sun and created such a nice picture.” At that moment the memories would have pinched his heart, if he had a functional one. Probably it _was_ pinched but Baekhyun could not tell. One nice thing about being dead is that you don’t feel physical pain. A shit that Baekhyun _wants_ to feel it. Supposedly, he’s getting back all human abilities so every day he falls down the top of his bed on purpose. He hopes someday he would feel how the cold hard floor causes pain though his dead muscles. It hadn’t been that day yet. “But I guess, at that time I didn’t recognised the painting in front of me. Although I still remember the view. I’d give the world if just had I been able to admire it and not” he stopped and swallowed again, “well, you know dead right what I did. It wasn’t until I was five steps away from her when she heard me coming. I wish she had not because when she did, she tried running away.” The expression in his face was more than enough to guess Baekhyun feelings, ”when you are six and scared by… what I was, your legs don’t work properly. She fell. She... she stepped wrongly and fell. Her face was hurt” once again the images of the little girl came to mind and made him want to cry. Nevertheless, his eyes forgot what crying was long ago. Since Baekhyun came back to life the most his eyes showed was a slight tiring-looking red. He would have given anything to forget that memory. Even if he had to keep the whole picture, he just begged to erase the image where the innocent and pure girl turned around with the most frightening face he could think of, screaming with blood coming down from the end of her left eyebrow. That, and everything that followed. “If I hadn’t been there and she had fallen, she would be alive right now, it was a small cut, nothing deeper than if she had cut herself with scissors. Her voice started to make a hash of it when I was kneeling down next to her” he _still_ remembers clearly. “She looked at me, she-“ _she knew who I was_ , “I-“

“That’s enough for today, thank you” said Mr Jung when he started shaking up to a point where his hand lost control. He didn’t realise he was sweating as well until he sat down properly and his wet t-shirt sent a snappy cold through his back. He didn’t listen how the lesson continued, he couldn’t. He kept thinking of the little girl as he always did.

The days they made him remember were the worst of all because he could not stop thinking. He had never finished the night, Mr Jung would always cut him before getting to the worst part. He had never been able to say it out loud and that frightened him. The thought of it made him tremble and not only that but he couldn’t describe how he felt when he first woke up either. The sudden cold through his dead skin made him open his eyes. The sense of belonging to the ground but the want of going outside. The need of blood as if he was a vampire. But more intense was the need of skin, muscles. Now he prefers to throw up before admitting he actually was less human than he will ever be from now one. Taking into account that’s not so much of it.

He skipped all of that and went to the real issue he had to get over. He tried each session but it just wouldn’t come out. His mouth couldn't make it to the part where the dizziness didn’t allow him to control his body. How shaky he can remember being. How after the way she looked at him, she knew deeper inside he was somewhere in that undead mess. She stopped screaming when their eyes met. Everything that came after was a blurry he hadn’t been able to forget though. He always dreamt about it. His own dead brain knew how horrible he had been to the little girl. How he had been able to _kill her_ even at the time she _trusted_ him.

“She… she hu- she _hugged_ me” he sighted.

What he had never told anyone was how the little girl tried to bring him back. And how she failed. How he didn’t recognise what a hug was and taking advantage of her position, he pushed her against the stone she had barged into. He left her without conscience in seconds.

 _That’s why we aren’t humans, why we don’t need mercy. We don’t deserve it. We might feel again but no one would bring us back the kind of warmth only living things have. No tears mean not having the power of the purest and truest shape of feeling. And we deserve that cruelness indeed._

And with that last thought he tried to sleep. Waiting for another day falling down and feeling nothing.

 

 

 _He can’t sleep anyway._ It’s been weeks since he is up all night. Since he started to have the memories back. There is something that doesn’t let him rest. Baekhyun doesn’t know what but it’s better this way. It’s an intense worry, a restless feeling. However, better than the truth. If he would remember, he will never live again the way he did. This pain is enough for now.

Baekhyun doesn’t need to know that after killing that poor girl, he left the bloody park and got mixed between the trees of the small forest their town held. But he was not by himself. Some people chased him until the cave he brought his preys every time, with the child open by her neck on his right. He was _eating her_ , the only thing he did besides killing, when they appeared in front of him. They held guns and knifes, they were equipped to attack.

Nevertheless, Park Chanyeol wasn’t ready to find Byun Baekhyun.

The shock left Chanyeol speechless. His hand started to fail and his gun touched the floor before he could notice. Baekhyun didn’t realise they were in front of him until he heard the gun crashing. His face lifted up to look the bother and didn’t recognise the face. The same way he hadn’t recognised the little girl. But if he could remember now he would know who he was, what he did, Baekhyun would never blame him, but instead he would finish the job he started. Still, Baekhyun will might never know what happened when his dead eyes came across Chanyeol mad eyes, the ones once had shown mad love: that day were mad in anger.

He shifted his look from Baekhyun to the girl and back a few times and then he felt something he had never felt before side by side with sadness and a pinch of guilt. He _had_ to think twice but Baekhyun standing up and walking towards where he was let him no other option than searching for the gun he hid on his boot. Once gun back in hand and pointing his target, Chanyeol shot to death his dead lover. Feeling the pain of losing him again, this time for better.

When Baekhyun fell over he wasn’t dead. Quite difficult to die twice if not in the proper way. But Chanyeol saw him immobile and thought of so. He was not thinking clearly, he could not after the situation he had just lived. A tear was falling down his eyes, one on each. Once for Baekhyun and one for his now gone sister.

Baekhyun knew who the girl was, sister of who she was. He loved that little girl with all his heart. Breathing in had two meanings for Baekhyun: Park Chanyeol and his little sister Yoora. His breath died two times then. First when he slaughtered Yoora, and secondly when Chanyeol shot him.

That was why his brain blocked the memories from the hug onwards. If the little girl was enough to break Baekhyun apart, knowing Chanyeol acknowledged everything would make his life heavier, and Baekhyun will not be able to lift that much over his shoulders.


	2. gang material

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Anyways. Who’s that new chick?”
> 
> “Okay, I can’t say we’re a gang but you can call the new kid chick?” Minseok grumbles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY i know you all didn't have any expectations for this fic anymore. It's been two years since i posted the first and only chapter but now i am committed to finish it. I have troubles writing in present so if there's any mistake sorry.. i'm trying to improve ^^
> 
> Sorry again and I hope you enjoy !!

_“_ So I guess not today either _”_ says Baekhyun as he feels the cold under his pale skin but not pain he wishes. He hasn’t slept tonight either but he’s not tired. They do nothing but taking pills and wandering around all day. His bed is quite comfortable so even if he doesn’t rest as he should, he can get the tiredness off his body.

When he approaches the mirror Baekhyun thinks he’s lucky. His face is similar to what it looked back in time, before everything started. Although his features are sharper and delineated by some shadows his own skin creates, as some muscles didn’t get their normal size back. His eyes are swallowed by the lids and don’t have the strong black colour that made them shine even when the night fell. Now they were marked by scars and had no colour in particular, sometimes you couldn’t guess if they had any. The only good thing now is that he got to choose the colour he wanted and, differing from the original, he chose green (which makes him remember they are fake, just as himself). In spite of, his cheeks didn’t fade away. He didn’t understand; it was not the bone what he felt but muscle, probably the only one that kept almost the right shape. Not even his lips stayed as wide as they used to be. He is also pale, although this is something in common with everyone. Your body keeps dying inside the grave even if you don’t breath anymore. But over all, he can’t complain. Some people aren’t as lucky.

Baekhyun knows how your face can be _discomposed, changed, disturbed_ while you are actually buried. He has seen faces that caused him pain. He has talked to that people and he knows how they feel. Baekhyun could go into the real world and not to be noticed as PDS sufferer, but most of them wouldn’t be able. That’s what causes the pain: the people outside. He knows what is waiting on the other side and it’s the main reason he doesn’t want to go. Not that he has _any_ reason either so he doesn’t ask how long he is going to be kept. He is glad the sun can’t burn his skin.

The first time he woke up in the centre was confusing. He remembers standing up and looking himself in the mirror without hesitating. Then screaming. So loud the guard came to his bedroom. Baekhyun murmured something between tears no one understood while Dr Kim entered the room as well, asking him to calm down and let him explain. For known reasons he didn’t let anyone get closer, he may hurt them. But at the same time he realised he _was_ in control of his thoughts and body, really different from what he remembered from being undead last time. 

Dr Kim said all patients react the same because they looked for it. Actually, they were the ones who put a mirror in front of the bed for them to look at. Some screamed, as Baekhyun himself, some stared for hours until someone would notice they were awake. The worst of cases was when some of them tried to finish their lives again. They’d seen many ways of trying, and sadly, of succeeding too. When he told Baekhyun, sadness showed all over his face. At the beginning Baekhyun couldn’t understand how in the world would someone care about them. As the time passed, he got to see how Dr Kim and many more spent their lives in the residence with them, they had no choice but to get involved and grown fond of them.

Because of all he heard and saw, the denial stage got over after the first month. Then the memories came back. He would wake up at night screaming so loud it made him remember the first day. The treatment included some classes learning how their body would function since they were undead people brought to life. He did not attend to them so he kept making mistakes and trying to kill himself in many ways that did not help him with the purpose. But now he’s used to his face, to the memories, to all that shit; and he learnt to live with it.

Every morning just before leaving his room puts a mark on the calendar. If he’s right, today makes 3 years 5 months and 9 days he’s _alive_ , in their kind of way. _It’s been more than I was at the grave._ Baekhyun guesses that by the time now he is 24. And he still looks like he was 19, _weird_. Others thought it was funny and something to be proud of, but Baekhyun knows what it takes and he could never be proud of _that_.

At that moment he wishes his family burnt him when he died. And Chanyeol comes to his mind too, pushing every other thought away. Hasn’t been a day when Baekhyun would not think of Chanyeol or the little memories he still has of him to be sincere.

He didn’t spent time wondering how he could be doing because he somehow _knew_ Chanyeol died with him that night of October. After all this time the only urge Baekhyun feels is to hope that Chanyeol never woke up, that he never became like him and that he won’t know what Baekhyun _did_. It is better that way. But the truth is he likely did, just as himself. At the beginning Baekhyun tried to figure out where the younger one would be, which residence, city. If they ever got to find him, if he survived. Some people aren’t strong enough and they can’t take the treatment. Actually, it sometimes kills you, this time for real. He asked the staff many times, different people, but no one knew who that “tall black-haired guy, about his age that responded to Park Chanyeol” was.

 _There was a time_.

Baekhyun got to ask some friend of the owner of the residence, and the week after he came back with news: there was this Chanyeol guy who was found in a river. Baekhyun was about to start crying when the guy showed him a photograph. The guy looked a nice person, which sadden him, but it wasn’t his Chanyeol, so he breathed again. He thanked the guard but denied knowing him. After that incident he stopped asking. The realization hit him; he prefers not to know if Chanyeol was alive. The unknown is better than assuring his death: because Baekhyun couldn’t ever say goodbye, not even in their second life. A lost second chance.

  

“I think we’ve been friends for too much already” Minseok spills out at lunchtime when Baekhyun cries about the time he’s been inside.

Baekhyun likes Minseok. They know each other almost since Baekhyun woke up. It was when he started remembering The Rising. Minseok woke up a year before Baekhyun did, so he knew how all of it felt.

“Sure, whatever, go sit with others” he answers neutral. Minseok seems unbothered and quickly smiles.

“Actually, look” he points to the other side of the room. “There’s a new kid in the gang”

“Minseok, don’t speak like we are gangsters. We are not.” He is now looking the new boy's direction. He is around their age, but impossible to guess truly, maybe he died with that age but now he could be 50, too old to hang out with them.

“He’s not 70” Minseok pouts, ”I already know what you are thinking, it’s always the same reason we never get to make friends here”

Minseok is right. It had always been Baekhyun and Minseok, that interesting duo. Minseok was all by himself when they met. They got to know each other because Minseok approached to him when Baekhyun was sitting on a corner of the bedroom. ‘ _You look like someone just killed you boy,_ was what he said’. Baekhyun looked up at the voice and saw a face so bright he remembers thinking he was someone else but an undead. Then he saw the _scar_ on his neck. ‘ _I wish’_ , was what he answered. According to their profile, he is two years older than Baekhyun. Not that he looks older though. 

Now the years have passed and they still are a duo, which Minseok finds boring, and Baekhyun finds Minseok complaining, tiring.

“Anyways. Who’s that new chick?”

“Okay, I can’t say we’re a gang but you can call the new kid chick?” he grumbles. “I’ve heard he’s around your age. He woke up last week and has been spending his days alone since then, we could do something good for today and talk to him. Besides, he’s pretty”

“So that’s why” Baekhyun is used to Minseok getting crushed all around the place, “he must be your type for you to want him to join us, it’s the first time you propose one of the guys you fall head over heels with does it”

”Ignoring your lack of taste, as you didn’t praised him. I’ll tell you I have already talked to him” Minseok smiles. 

“Tell him to come over so” Baekhyun thinks maybe someone new can bring a different atmosphere to the residence.

The new kid happens to be a good one. His name is Jongdae. Both he and Minseok have been lucky as well. They look really nice to be dead; in truth, Minseok has some colour on his cheeks when he smiles. Maybe is the treatment, he’s been nearly 5 years with it. Jongdae is friendly and even if he didn’t have anyone to talk to, he is funny. Baekhyun reckons it’s because this is all new for him. It had been a week if Minseok was right, and when he goes back then to his own memories, that had been the most terrifying week of his life. The thought that you are going to lose the control over your mind and attack everyone is the scariest thing they can imagine.

There are some stories though. People sometimes don’t take the pills, or the treatment doesn’t work for them as by the time passes it needs to be adequated. Baekhyun and Minseok saw how people change into _what they were once_ one time over a year ago. There was this guy who barely talked to anyone, and when they were waiting to see the doctor, he threw himself over the person in front of him. Everyone run and screamed. Baekhyun has never seen them again, neither of them. He doesn’t know, but that’s the deeper reason he accepted Jongdae to join. Usually those things happen when you have no one to talk to, to say how you feel or to share the experience. Or that’s what he wants to thinks.

 

However, he won’t let Jongdae give it a try.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was supposed to be a lighter chapter than the first one... tell me your thoughts both on the story and any error or critique. I will gladly take it since it has been a lot of time without writing anything at all.


	3. wet tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of those therapy sessions Dr Kim would apology afterwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to [suzu](https://twitter.com/fromzrx) for the beta reading !!

Therapy sessions should be about what the PDS sufferers think about themselves or their situation, but both of them seem to do an exception for today. 

Dr. Kim is a good man; it doesn’t take much time to notice. Baekhyun will always be thankful for all the advices, lessons and talks they had after he woke up. If it weren’t for his help, maybe he wouldn’t be here. Besides, Dr. Kim has many patients on his area but Baekhyun is his favourite. It isn’t like everyone knows it but he told him once after a really long talk. Minseok was there too and joked around with (it still hurts him and pisses him off a bit but Baekhyun feels he’s now Jongdae’s favourite and doesn’t complain that much). His full name is Kim Junmyeon and it really fits him, Baekhyun reckons. He isn’t that old, actually just a bit older than him; even younger than Minseok. Sometimes he wonders how one day you decide to work with people like _him._  

Junmyeon started as any other Bachelor of Medicine, but when the world turned upside down, he chose undeath as his specialty. It was just starting so he was one of the first doctors to get in touch with their world. Many of his fellow students left the study as soon as they understood who they had to work with, after that incident he reassured himself in his decision. He was from the city, another reason the younger one doesn’t understand; why had he chosen a rotten town down the hill when the city offered all the technology and advantages a doctor could imagine? In this, _their_ , world, everything was torn apart from civilization. The residence is in between two mountains, for their security, so any human would appear suddenly and bloodshed them (word Minseok doesn’t think fits as their blood isn’t really blood anymore). The lack of understanding for the PSD sufferers is something the older one can’t stand. 

“I get some of them-” 

“‘Us’, don’t bother really after all this time” Baekhyun helps him. 

“You know, I have never been that kind of person and I won’t start today because you can’t love yourself a bit more,” the doctor says in a harsh tone. But he is right; Baekhyun hasn’t tried to live a life after all. At this point, sincerity is the one weapon that works against him. “Anyway, I get some of them” he starts again as he thinks the untreated state isn’t part of their personality, as if it was another person, “were unkind to people and did quite bad things, but isn’t it part of the past? I am tired of people accusing you instead of the illness you suffered. We have treated you, helped you, _fixed_ you.” His face starts to have a slight red colour, “I’ve been working here for five years now and besides two or three incidents that did not affect any human working here, everything has gone in the right way. We release some of you each week, to your family _. Isn’t it_ _beautiful_? Guys, you were _dead_. Imagine you lost someone and suddenly you were able to keep them for many more years. The time we didn’t know what was happening was horrifying, I know, I lost people as well. However, today we can fix things, help people and reunite families” he breathes out and Baekhyun realises he spoke without breathing in all that time. “I just can’t get why people are so mad at you. If they cooperated everything would be just so easy.” His eyes look defeated while he glances at the floor and keeps his head down. His hands rush to get to the water tap before running them over his face. “Yet, we receive calls of families screaming out of their lungs because some fucking stupid kid into the HVF groups has managed to kill someone. For fuck’s sake those are _lives_ ; it should be considered a _murder_.” 

Baekhyun has kept quiet during all the speech. They don’t get much feedback about what awaits for them out there. They are warned to be careful of their surroundings, as there are people who don’t accept them for who they are. It was normal for him before, because after all, he has memories and he knows what he did. He knows that someone has to live with the pain of losing a loved one. He is having trouble himself with it. But some of Junmyeon words may make sense. After all it was true that the reason behind The Rising had been an illness, kind of. 

“You do everything you can to save us” Baekhyun speaks again, trying to help him feel better. 

“But it isn’t enough, it isn’t enough” he cleans his face once more. As he dries it, an apology follows and he leaves the room. 

Baekhyun is left thinking. If Junmyeon cares that much about them, why can’t he do it?

 And once again Yoora is brought to his mind. 

He tries to overcome the shivering of his body by applying all the reasons Dr. Kim has explained him today. _‘It wasn’t me’ but it was. ‘I couldn’t fight it back’, did I even try?_ The image appears, the blood, the pain. Everything seems real so he screams. He falls onto the ground, his knees soar but a _‘who cares’_ slips his mouth and then he knows he has failed. He fails so miserably to defeat that feeling he would swear he is still dying. 

Death. 

For a second the pain is so strong he has never left the car after the accident. His hands are still bleeding. Numb, he can’t get out of the car. Next to him is Chanyeol. He gets to look at him in his memories and a tear is dropped back in the present. He can cry. It shocks him, but with the tear the most clear image he has gotten of the boy since he started to remember fades away and becomes as blurry as the rest of his memories. But as much as he wants to leave, his mind doesn’t let the moment go. Chanyeol bleeds, more than he remembered, his head hurts and can’t focus on waking Chanyeol up. As if he could help at all. Then he sleeps; forever he thought. 

When some of the guards come looking for him the pain is gone, but the tear firmly falls onto the ground. He touches the trace it left behind and hopes he didn’t remember at all, as he used to. Because that’s the truth, he couldn’t remember Chanyeol. For over a month he didn’t even think of the boy. It wasn’t until his belongings were given back he opened the wallet and something fell. A photograph. Now with a stain of blood right down the eye, down his lost lover’s eye.

Those are the other memories he is afraid of, Chanyeol ones, and when they happened to appear no other day he felt so much pain. That was the day he died for the third time (first away of Chanyeol’s eyes but too close to his heart).

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so this was another sad chapter, i'm trying to alternate a sad one with a less sad one. 
> 
> Hope it was good enough even tho it's still short.. I can't cope with long chapters sorry !!

**Author's Note:**

> So, after all this time i ended uploading again. I'll try to upload each tuesday but can't promise. Hope you enjoy and thanks for reading <3


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